


Wished Upon a Star

by Abyssal_Agito



Category: Fate/Grand Order
Genre: Drowning, Gen, Snuff, Underwater, Underwater Peril
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-03
Updated: 2020-01-03
Packaged: 2021-02-27 15:21:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,224
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22099375
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Abyssal_Agito/pseuds/Abyssal_Agito
Summary: A What-if alternate telling of the death of Yang Guifei, one of the tragic Four Beauties of China and how she might have felt and what she might have experienced in her last moments...
Kudos: 10





	Wished Upon a Star

“Yang Guifei! F-for your crimes against me and this country, by conspiring and committing adultery with the enemy that rebelled against me, I hereby sentence you to death! Eunuch Gao Lishi, you will carry it out as you see fit!”

Even before the pained words had just barely left the Emperor's quivering lips, Yang Guifei, or Yang Yuhuan as she was known before her life in the Imperial Court, knew the moment An Lushan rebelled against the Tang Empire and sent the Emperor and his Imperial Court fleeing the capital that her days are numbered. She could only watch in abject horror when her cousin the Chancellor provoked the barbarian general to no end until he could stand no more. If only she knew what was going on before this transpired she might have been able to do something. But all was now for naught. Surrounded by his angry soldiers and closest officials, the Emperor's hand was forced to placate them: her life or his.

“By your command, your Imperial Majesty. Take her away.” The old eunuch Gao Lishi commanded to a handful of the imperial guards to his side whilst pointing to Yang Yuhuan who sat beside the Emperor. 

As they approached her, she slowly stood up whilst raising her hand to halt them, which they somehow still complied. “I will stand and walk on my own.” She said softly, almost ruefully to the guards. She then turned to the Emperor one last time. “Thank you for all you've done for me. Allow me to return your kindness with this, your Majesty. Goodbye.” Her last sight of the Emperor was him almost raising his hand as if to stop her but didn't, but it was all she could ever ask of him.

Everything became a blur right after she bid him farewell. She was immediately led away far from the Emperor's pavilion to a quiet corner of the village they had stopped by on their way to escape the capital where she was bound tightly in ropes and forced to lay down inside a small bamboo woven cage meant for ferrying pigs tied with several large heavy rocks under the direct order of Lishi who surmised it was a fitting punishment for her alleged crime of adultery: execution by drowning as per the law.

Yuhuan remained calm and impassive in her bind and erstwhile prison even as she was carried away to the nearest river. She stared balefully at the southern evening sky with her hands together seemingly in prayer. She noted to herself through the gap of the cage how bright and beautiful was the single lonely blue star in the sky was, and it reminded her of herself in her current predicament.

The guards carried the cage with her in it out onto a wooden pier that extends out into the deepest part of the river, and once they reached the end, they stopped and put the cage down, and waited. Lishi stood behind them, and looked down at the cage and its prisoner once more. For a brief moment, the old eunuch looked downcast at how the situation has turned out. He knew more than anyone that this was nothing more than tragedy of errors that could have been avoided once upon a time.

Time which they no longer have.

Yuhuan caught the old eunuch's expression, and offered a melancholic smile and a nod, somehow perhaps reading his thoughts and signaled to him everything will be fine. Gao Lishi sighed inwardly and nodded in return, and looked up at the still waiting imperial guards who bore no such remorse or pity as he does. 

“Throw it.” He commanded as impassionately as he could muster with a wave of his hand, and the guards summarily lifted the cage and cast it with Yuhuan still in it out into the water as far as they can. 

Yuhuan shut her eyes bracing for the impact that hit her when her cage hit the surface of the relatively calm river. Almost immediately, she yelped out, the last sound she ever made, at the sudden cold that surrounded her as the water easily rises up and submerged her as the cage sank right away, weighed down by the rocks. The cage and all disappeared almost immediately beneath the surface, leaving no trace of it except for the ripples that formed where it sank.

Yuhuan tried to remain calm even as the cage sank down further still into the river, a thin trail of bubbles of air streaming out of her nose towards to surface where she could no longer be as water stung her sinus that brought unbidden tears in her eyes that mixed immediately with the river water. She held her breath for as long as she could and tried to fight the stinging pain, her face wincing at how unbearable it was, but her survival instinct held her back from opening her mouth in reflex as it told her she would only hasten her demise if she do as much.

Fear gripped her heart and she wanted nothing more to be saved from her impending death. How she wished the Emperor would stay his hand and protect her more. The fear molted into anger and hatred at him, and at everyone that had brought about this turn of event. Her chests ached not just from her strained lungs but from the weight of all that had happened finally sinking in on her.

As if on cue, the cage finally stopped sinking, and though it hit the slightly rocky bottom softly, the soft impact nudged her with surprise causing her to exhale, sending flurries of bubbles escaping her suddenly parted lips and stirring the surface slightly to the watchful eyes of the guards and Lishi as well. Unable to bear the pain and the urging of her lungs any longer, Yuhuan gave in and inhaled to relieve herself, and her eyes flew open to reveal her unerringly cold stare at her own realization that she was dying as the cold river water ravaging her body rushes in and floods her lungs. 

The pain was even more unbearable than she had thought, and all pretense of strength in the face of her cruel tormentors was replaced by her overpowering urge to live. Her bound body was wracked with painful convulsions contained inside the cage with nowhere to go with her every attempt to exhale nothing and only succeeded in inhaling more water into her lungs, seemingly repeating a maddening cycle of false relief and merciless pain.

Her eventually convulsions grew weaker, and as her numbing consciousness somehow thought the cold was slowly being replaced with a phantom warmth, she didn't know why she suddenly envied the lone blue star she saw earlier, and how she wished she could be enveloped in its light forever, unaware if her stray wish upon a star would somehow reach a mind somewhere that could hear her.

Her last thought as calmness descended on her was how she wished she could be strong in a different life unlike her weak self now. With one last shudder of her body as if to defy her tragic fate, Yang Yuhuan's body finally settled in the cage unmoving with her eyes closed part way as she could see nor feel anything no more.


End file.
